My Husband Died After 62 Years of Marriage – At His Funeral, a Girl Approached Me, Handed Me an Envelope, and Said, ‘He Asked Me to Give This to You on This Day’

The girl stared down at her shoes for a moment. “My dad left when I was little. My mom is in the hospital right now. I stay with my neighbor most of the time. That’s how I found out Harold had died. She showed me the obituary in the paper and told me when the funeral was.”

“What happened to your mother?”

“She needs heart surgery,” Gini said without self-pity. “But it costs too much.”

“I want to see your mother.”

We loaded Gini’s bicycle into the taxi trunk. On the way, she mentioned that Harold had given it to her not long before he died, and the thought of it caught me off guard. Then we drove to the hospital.

“My mom is in the hospital.”

Her mother lay in a narrow bed on the third floor, pale and thin, tubes running from her arm. She looked younger than her circumstances, the way illness can strip a person down to something unfairly raw.

“She’s been here two months,” Gini said softly from the foot of the bed. “Harold used to come by sometimes to check on us. The last time I saw him, he gave me that envelope and made me promise to give it to you.”

“Did he say why?”

Gini shook her head. “I asked where he was going. He just smiled and said his health wasn’t very good anymore.”

“Harold used to come by sometimes to check on us.”